Topic:
Paella

Paella

OK, this one is a bit of a two course meal, but here goes:

Starters: Muscles. Start by removing the beard of the muscles, having nabbed a bag of fresh muscles from your local supermarket. Any that are open and do not close with a bit of tapping, get rid of them. Once beard removed, boil up some white wine. Bung a couple of glasses in to a pan with your muscles and dump in another couple of glasses of water. Pop the lid on with a crushed garlic inside for good measure. The muscles should open in the heat. Any that don't need to be thrown away. After a few minutes they should all be open. Drain out the wine. Mix wine with corn flour before pouring over muscles.

Dice up an onion, Get a big frying pan. I do mean big. Use oil, rather than olive oil. Fry the onions with two cloves of garlic, crushed. Dice up two chicken breasts and add to the mix on a high heat. Once chicken cooked add two diced fillet of white fish. If you want to be exotic you can always add a swordish steak, but getting a cheap bag of frozen white from Iceland can work well here.

Once the fish is heated through, add a tin of diced tomatoes and turn the heat down to medium. Get a bag of paella rice and add to the mix, stiring in. Now add a pint of chicken stock.

Mix in about a 1/4 pack of papricka.

Mix together. This is the basic Paella mix. You are waiting on the rice to cook through and may have to add more chicken stock, or water until the rice is cooked through.

However, this is where it gets optional. The first time I tried a paella it had crab claws in it. So you can go down to your local fishmonger and get three or four of these to add to the mix. Other options that people add are choritzo and even chille. I don''t tend to go with this when doing the sea food variant.

Anyway, just as your rice is nearly cooked, add about six king prawns to the top and allow them to heat through. At the same time add about half a dozen of the muscles. Once steamed through, just plonk the whole lot on a heat proof stand on the table, with a diced lemon garnish on top. Salt to taste. Anway, lots of bowls and fresh bread and butter. Munch the muscles for starters before plonking the paella on the table.